Going Green - Good for the Environment and Good for Business

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DBSi, the leading regional provider of high availability disaster recovery, secure managed hosting and data center services, releases information on its long standing project to optimize energy usage and reduce its carbon footprint.

On August 2, 2007 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its report to Congress on server and data center energy efficiency. In the report it noted that U.S. data centers consumed 61 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2006, equivalent to approximately 5.8 million average U.S. households. The report also stated if change is not instituted the country could expect data center power usage to nearly double to over 100 billion kWh within the next 5 years.

In 2005 a Ziff-Davis survey showed that more than 70 percent of participating data centers identified power and/or cooling as a primary issue for their IT environments. Recognizing this problem was growing and not going to be easily conquered, DBSi instituted a Green initiative pioneering cooling and power management technologies discussed in the EPA report well before its contents were released. DBSi's CEO took a personal interest in leading this effort utilizing proprietary DBSi infrastructure designs to reduce overall data center power consumption by 20 to 70% depending on the component within the facility. This has allowed DBSi to contain costs for customers and continue to offer long term contracts that reward them for their commitment. The combined power consumption of DBSi's data centers is projected to exceed the energy used by over 30,000 average U.S. households; DBSi's Green initiative will save the equivalent of 6,000 to 7,000 average households worth of electricity annually.

Green is not only good for the environment by reducing energy cost and carbon footprint, but also improves the efficiency and longevity of servers, storage, and network equipment contained within DBSi's data centers. This proactive initiative by DBSi allows its customers to get more out of each data center asset while enjoying the competitive benefits DBSi offers its clients in both managed hosting and disaster recovery.

DBSi's Green initiative has taken a holistic approach to improving energy efficiency, focusing on areas such as the thermal dynamics within each of its buildings; electric distribution; cooling methodologies; recycling and overall data center design. According to the Uptime Institute most data centers loose two-thirds of every watt of electricity to cooling and inefficient operations; DBSi's Green initiative is reclaiming much of this lost power for productive use by their servers, storage, and network equipment. Proof points can be found in the near 40% reduction in radiant temperature generated by DBSi's facilities; an ability to cool its data centers at times without running it's chillers resulting in near zero carbon output for this operation; providing services that enable virtualization of servers that can result in a consolidation ratio of 8 to 1, or better; and investing in technologies that reduce power distribution losses traditionally found in moving the power from the street to the computing devices.

"Staying on the current path, commercial data centers will consume a disproportionate amount of our country's energy. This is not good for the environment or for business." said William A. Bachenberg, CEO, DBSi. "Something had to change to support the 15-30 percent compound annual growth rate in power and cooling most data centers are experiencing; and for companies like DBSi this growth rate is even higher. We saw the need and became experts at not only the management of high availability data centers but also at architecting energy efficient infrastructures while maintaining our 100% uptime record. We are one of only a handful of data centers in the country employing our degree of green technology, and meeting the stringent availability requirements of our clients."

About DBSi:
DBSi is the leading regional provider of high availability disaster recovery, managed hosting, and data center services. Headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the company's business model is based on flexible, cost effective solutions tailored to the specific needs of its clients. DBSi has provided customized solutions to mid-sized and Fortune 500 corporations around the world for over twenty-five years and offers the personal care and attention companies expect while providing enterprise level infrastructure and expertise. DBSi operates multiple advanced technology recovery and hosting centers which also contain hundreds of seats for workspace recovery; and through its high-speed fiber optic networks provides seamless connectivity between its facilities, clients and the world. For more information go to http://www.dbsintl.com.